Tiresias

I kind of agree that Ba, Best and HBA on the pitch at the same time would be a fun idea, but I think it would reduce our width a fair amount, and that would be problematic against some opponents.

i can see the logic of best and ben arfa, one player who can play with back to goal bringing in ben arfa, whereas Ba may drop back and not be in the box when needed, but seemed ok against City and ultimately wouldn't take off someone on scoring form. It's really tough on Best who has earned my respect, but it's Ba and Ben Arfa for me, and drop Ba for best at 70 mins or so when Ba tires (or for ben arfa if he's knackered)

What would people expect their team to be against us? Despite their whining about injuries they have a lot of options.

Watching that video, that pass to Ba took the total piss out of the player (who was it? Don't think it was a central defender) who was moving accross to block Ben Arfa's shot that he assumed was coming. The kind of trick none of our other kind of players are capable of

Burton Albion and Morecambe in league 2 since best mates are fans of them (though at the game i went to burton fans were sooooooo miserable) Everton kinda for same reason. Swansea at the moment seem to be playing some lovely footy generally fairly neutral. Levante in la Liga was wonderful, but while I follow european footy just never see enough, too much second hand to judge

I can't really hate King Kenny too much, he provides too much comedy with liverpool supporting workmate Of course it'll all backfire when it goes to plan for them, but still, Henderson is pretty funny

Hmmmmmmm not convinced over Terry, I think he got completely found out against Germany to be honest, though our whole team did, and maybe playing with confidence yes would go ahead of Jagielka but at the moment seems a bit of a liability to me

Cabaye's mouth looks oddly tiny there

Aye. Though Messi is great to watch though. Still Levante's fall from the top of La Liga was very sad

Is it PJ Harvey?

My England team right now would be (accepting Saylor will never make squad for some reason) Hart Richards Lescott Jagielka Baines Parker Wilshere Lampard Walcott Young Rooney There are caveats, Walcott seems in best form i've seen him for Arsenal right now, if he goes back to his usual crapness then probably go for Johnson. Milner recently has looked better than i thought he could look for City so maybe as an alternative to Young or Lampard. Really not sure about the central pairing, that's just based on Spain, and think we should have a settled backline leading up to euros. Ferdinand and Terry are past it. Rooney ideally but less sure we should take him right now, and dunno who to replace him with, Bent perhaps, think he's done better than a lot have suggested when asked for England. I also think a pardew style 4-4-2 with Wilshere and Parker in midfield and lots of counterattacking ability would be a decent idea.

Agreed though Lampard is getting on a bit, has to be kinda expected to be injuredl. I'd give Cleverly a shot depending how he does this season, but like Jones basically expect him to be hyped all out of proportion HE PLAYS FOR A MEDIOCRE MAN UNITED TEAM HE MUST BE BRILLIANT

Other teams I like tend to be to do with close friends who are supporters, which includes Everton and some league 2 teams heh. I have an irrational hatred of totenham, I find harry redknapp annoying, even though I probably should like their direct but attacking style, but I get all these connotations of good old british pluck about their european adventure last season it wound me up a bit, but still beating the Milan's was pretty fun (if predictable, they were obviously very very vulnerable to pace and width), and yet bleh. I find it hard to dislike teams for being too rich, in the premier league very few teams really qualify as poor and everyones a greedy scumbag really. Still great resentment at City buying the league, but that's how you win the league. I mainly hate the people who run football and are running it into the ground making massive amount of money in the process.

Wolves, Stoke and City (Mackems obviously) but hate does seem too strong a word really, apart from individuals I hope not too be too mean spirited really

Disagree, Barry has had a few decent games for Man City recently but he's still just too sluggish to be risked. Parker's performance against Spain was very very good. I can't really see what Barry offers to be honest. I'm not Parker's biggest fan (the massive media crush on him is wildly OTT) but he's probably the best defensive midfielder we have right now

Just to play devils advocate, are Blackburn's problems really anything to with Kean? Venkys are clearly incompetant but I dunno if their squad is really much cop, and apparently he was very high rated as a coach for a while behind the scenes (think got this from football weekly)

Well this thread has finally imploded from any kind of Ben Arfa theme

Mick McCarthy all time greatest manager?

Oh really? Ok maybe got to work on defending lol

just going by mentions, obviously going to back him up, and it's perfectly possible to have 1 good defender and a shit defence

I don't disagree with slowly bringing him in, but just saying would like to see him getting some game time now

Oh dear, our defence seems a shambles, but sounds like Santon was very good

He's starting in the reserves I suspect with Pardew watching as an audition for saturday.

I was at school with Steve McClaren's kids while he was at Middlesbrough, they quit the school over being bullied about it, and the schoolyard gossip was that most the comments were positive but they massively overreacted to slight banter when mboro lost a game, but looking back of course possibly could have been horrid for them. I barely knew them.

Tony Pulis just annoys the fuck out of me in general